LightSquared's plan to build a nationwide 4G network was hit by what seemed like a death blow in February, when the Federal Communications Commission revoked its tentative approval because the network would interfere with GPS devices. But LightSquared has influential friends, and lawmakers were eager to blame the FCC, even if they didn't really understand the technical reasons that caused LightSquared's proposal to fail. Spectrum swaps with federal users to bail out the company have also been proposed.

LightSquared came up with its own proposal on Friday (PDF), which involves sharing 5MHz of spectrum with the federal government in a band partially used for weather balloons. It also involves abandoning its most controversial piece of spectrum, the one just below the GPS signals. But LightSquared still wants to build on the lower 10MHz of its spectrum, even though the FCC has already rejected it as unsuitable because millions of existing GPS devices can't filter out neighboring signals. To compensate, LightSquared would lower the power levels in this portion of spectrum to 52dBm per sector EIRP, down from the previously planned power level of 62dBm, which was found to interfere with GPS.

Specifically, LightSquared is proposing to relinquish any claim on the 10MHz (1545-1555 MHz) closest to the GPS band. It is simultaneously asking for rule changes (PDF) that would permit its "eventual robust commercial use of that lower 10MHz of spectrum," a downlink band at 1526-1536 MHz.

This isn't much of a concession. LightSquared already agreed to temporarily give up on deploying in the upper 10MHz. But that wasn't sufficient. "Based on the testing and analyses conducted to date, as well as numerous discussions with LightSquared, it is clear that LightSquared's proposed implementation plans, including operations in the lower 10MHz, would impact both general/personal navigation and certified aviation GPS receivers," the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) told the FCC in February. That information led to the withdrawal of LightSquared's conditional approval to deploy terrestrial broadband services.

LightSquared's approval from the previous year had been conditioned on preventing interference with GPS devices. The NTIA did find that LightSquared could prevent interference with GPS by adjusting power levels, antenna height, and antenna angles, but LightSquared rejected this as impractical. Such modifications would prevent the proposed network from hitting appropriate service levels without an investment of billions to build more base stations, which would in any case cause more interference with GPS receivers.

LightSquared "volunteers" to delay use of spectrum it can't use anyway

LightSquared does seem resigned to at least some further delay in deploying on the lower 10MHz, as it says it would "voluntarily" not deploy on that lower 10MHz while the FCC conducts the potential rulemaking proceeding. Since the FCC has already explicitly told LightSquared it cannot deploy on this chunk of spectrum, the use of the word "voluntarily" is an interesting one.

LightSquared hopes its concessions, including the lower power level and some geographic restrictions, will allow limited use of the lower 10MHz until it becomes viable to proceed with "robust terrestrial use of that spectrum." But robust deployment could well require major changes to GPS receiver standards, and replacement of millions of existing GPS devices already deployed for personal and public safety use. Even if a government plan to overhaul GPS standards is devised, it would take many years to implement because of the huge GPS install base.

The new part of LightSquared's proposal involves deploying terrestrial services on 1670-1675 MHz, which LightSquared already has authority to use nationwide, and on 1675-1680 MHz, which LightSquared wants to share with federal government users. This would create a contiguous 10MHz of spectrum for downlink to get the network started, while LightSquared would use its uplink bands of 1627.5-1637.5 MHz and 1646.7-1656.7 MHz.

The 1675-1680 spectrum is "used for federal purposes including National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration weather balloons," the IDG News Service reports. The FCC is moving ahead with spectrum sharing—but getting spectrum from the government is not easy, and the federal spectrum LightSquared wants isn't part of the 1,000MHz the government is targeting for sharing.

"I suppose if they avoid using bands that cause problems for GPS and are able to figure out some way of sharing government spectrum, then the proposal is technically feasible," wireless researcher Peter Rysavy told Ars via e-mail. "However, making sharing work is potentially very complicated, so it could be a long-term process to figure out the mechanics. Beyond technology, the politics of getting the spectrum swapped could also be very challenging."

The lower 10MHz did cause problems for GPS in government testing, as we noted earlier, and GPS makers have opposed LightSquared's plans.

In a response to LightSquared's latest proposal, GPS maker Trimble said it "supports the initiation of a rulemaking proceeding to consider the appropriate long term use of the mobile satellite spectrum adjacent to GPS," but wants to avoid paying lots of money to overhaul GPS devices.

"The issue is not merely whether there are ‘technology solutions’ to interference issues, but whether or not those solutions can be implemented at reasonable cost and without substantially hindering future innovation in location-based products and services," Trimble VP and general counsel Jim Kirkland said in a statement e-mailed to Ars. "Moreover, consistent with established FCC policy, any such costs must be borne by the new spectrum use, not US businesses and consumers who rely on GPS." Kirkland did not say whether LightSquared's newly proposed power levels are low enough to prevent interference.

LightSquared's friends in Congress want the FCC to get its network back on track immediately. US Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) recently demanded a solution from FCC officials, but FCC Chief of Engineering and Technology Julius Knapp said LightSquared's fate is subject to an open proceeding, and it's too early to endorse any one proposal.

Congressional Republicans have been split on LightSquared, a story in The Hill notes, with some blasting President Obama for helping LightSquared too much, and others accusing Obama's administration of deliberately torpedoing LightSquared's proposal.

Question: why is LightSquared such an emotional trigger here on ARS? Sure, it's an example of how corrupt American politics are, but there are plenty of those. There's some junk science, but that's also not uncommon.

What is it about this topic that brings out the level of emotion and anger usually reserved for climate change or internet surveillance?

Initially, at least, a bunch of kids and/or electromagnetic physics-impaired adults would show up and cheer for LS and against "evil" government preventing them from deploying the spectrum (I suspect they were mostly RON PAUL fanatics who hate government with a fervor). That seems to have gone away mostly once the reality of the situation and more understanding about how signals next to each other work.

This proposal is OK, testing needs to be done of course, and independently verified that it still wont harm GPS devices. If weather balloons can co-exist with LS (which is what LS is proposing, federal spectrum sharing, not an outright takeover), then I'd be OK with it.

What I'd really like to see is Charlie Ergen get his hands on this spectrum and use it to augment the 40MHz terrestrial cell network he is planning on building with his 2.0/2.2GHz spectrum. They could use the LS spectrum for satellite-ground for areas without terrestrial coverage, and have a fast nationwide LTE network. But I doubt Falcone wants that to happen since it would destroy the value of LS.

Total side question -- Why are 5Mhz reserved for Weather Balloons? This seems like a huge amount of spectrum for something that requires very little (or seriously, none? Can't they simply use cellular or satcom uplinks in modern times?).

I don't think the entire 5MHz is for weather balloons. That's why it says "partially" used for weather balloons.

It looks like the weather balloon band is from 1675-1685mhz, so this would cut out half of the band, however it also looks like the transmitter used are 300 milliwatts or less, which means if Lightsquared transmits at significant power next to that, it would make it difficult to receive weather balloon transmissions as well.

By the way, I wanted to say this was a much better article then the last one. Thank you.

Which comes back to my original question -- Why do weather balloons need any spectrum allocation?

I like having accurate weather forecasts every day. Weather balloons are released around every 2 hours around the world to provide data to update your weather forecasts. I think their is a global standard for frequencys used by the balloons. This maybe a case where the proposed solution will impact more than just the USA.

Keep on it LightSquared! You are right on. We need a competitor in the US that can provide low cost mobile data. We are at the mercy of a duopoly...VZ and ATT. The rest of the mobile guys are too far behind to be make a difference.As to the interference....I call B.S. on the NTIA testing. The LS spectrum is 23 MHz away from the GPS band. You think 5MHz on weather balloons is bad....how about a 23 MHZ guardband? And Kirkland from Trimble built the trillion $$ business on this free spectrum...Talk about leaches.NTIA tests at this new lower power show that the devices pass. There is no need for a magic filter. Plenty of people continue to post this fiction on Ars. It is not true.

Question: Would the LS deployment prevent GLONASS devices from functioning?

Lightsquared owns 1525-1559 MHz.The L1 band is the band directly above this, from 1559 to 1610 MHz. Most of the Nav systems have something in this band, existing or proposed (Navstar C/A and L1C, Galileo, Japan's QZSS, GLONASS)These would all suffer more or less the same amount of problems. I haven't seen test results, although the European Commission chairman did file a protest that said Galileo would suffer more interference than Navstar.

China has Beidou, currently at 2491.75 MHz with future satellites to include a band centered at 1561.09 MHz. 15 MHz closer, but narrower bandwidth. It would still have worse problems, but the filters could be narrower which would partially mitigate the difficulty.

There's also a global Search and Rescue downlink band at 1544-1544.2. But I expect those are old school parabolic dishes, so they can probably mostly ignore Lightsquared. I haven't seen anything to suggest it's been actually evaluated though.

Keep on it LightSquared! You are right on. We need a competitor in the US that can provide low cost mobile data. We are at the mercy of a duopoly...VZ and ATT. The rest of the mobile guys are too far behind to be make a difference.As to the interference....I call B.S. on the NTIA testing. The LS spectrum is 23 MHz away from the GPS band. You think 5MHz on weather balloons is bad....how about a 23 MHZ guardband? And Kirkland from Trimble built the trillion $$ business on this free spectrum...Talk about leaches.NTIA tests at this new lower power show that the devices pass. There is no need for a magic filter. Plenty of people continue to post this fiction on Ars. It is not true.

Big take away is that even with filters and significant design changes, there are just some GPS services that still won't work. It's just too close to L1, and filters just give you too much of a sensitivity hit that some really accurate GPS's that we use today become 100% just not possible. Oh, and enough signal would leak into space to actually affect some satellite operations -- can't really retrofit those.

Oh, and with their testing, every single city that has LS in it has huge swaths of areas where planes just won't get GPS. The plane might be resistant to a tower (as they did in testing), but at altitude when potentially hundreds of towers are leaking energy at you, things get a bit dicier......

This is where I get frustrated in government and business. How many of my tax dollars are being wasted here because neither side understands basic fucking physics? I know this has been discussed on these technical forums ad nauseam, but the short of it is you can't broadcast terrestrial strength signals next to a satellite band and expect a useful signal to noise ratio anymore. Won't work, can't work, and no matter how you reframe the damn issue, it's not feasible without re-engineering every GPS receiver out there. Some things you can't talk into working no matter how many angles one try's to take. Sisyphean article reference indeed.

Lightwave was obviously hoping for the same kind of regulation from the FCC that BP got from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

I don't know that the congressional hearings are actually a waste of taxpayer dollars. It's not like congress was busy doing anything.

Isn't there some sort of government process which should prevent the FCC from licensing spectrum which would be fairly useless in this regard? Or is it that LS went into this venture knowing that their use of the spectrum would cause issues and were just hoping that either the laws of physics or man would bend just enough to allow it to exist?

Also...

dlux wrote:

BkMak wrote:

That 5Mhz is what the Government uses to communicate with the aliens. Jeez...

Whilst scanning the comments I read that as, "That 5Mhz is what the Government uses to communicate with Jesus."

Now before we begin this legislative session let us bow our heads and pray...

Not before we double-check to make sure that they've been granted the appropriate license for the shared spectrum, and that the use thereof doesn't interfere with previously-licensed spectrums. I mean, you think they'd learn a lesson here...

Isn't there some sort of government process which should prevent the FCC from licensing spectrum which would be fairly useless in this regard? Or is it that LS went into this venture knowing that their use of the spectrum would cause issues and were just hoping that either the laws of physics or man would bend just enough to allow it to exist?

The later.FCC licensed the spectrum for satellite to earth transmissions years ago, to another company.LightSquared bought that company and the spectrum license along with it, asked FCC to use it for earth to earth transmission. FCC told them "yes, if you can prove it doesn't interfere with GPS".The testing showed that it interferes with most if not all GPS receivers.

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

The facts are distorted by self proclaimed experts here on Ars.

To get it straight, LS is proposing transmitters onthe lower 10MHz. This is 23MHz away from the lower edge of GPS...effectively a 23MHz guard band. They have now offered to lower to the transmit power significantly. In addition, the original NTIA tests showed that not all GPS devices failed when exposed to a -26 signal or lower.

Since a majority of devices passed the test at -26 or lower, that means it is possible to produce a GPS receiver that will perform adjacent (really 23MHz away) from the LS spectrum.

LightSquared may not make it though to see the spectrum put to work. But I would bet someone will pick up this lower 10 MHz next and deploy a terrestrial system on it. The spectrum is too valuable to leave fallow. And it will be built with little fan fare barely noticed by the internets.

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

It has nothing to do with an opposing view. It is because you ignore counter arguments, ignore requests for more details, and just repeat the same lines over and over again. What's that look like to you?

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

The facts are distorted by self proclaimed experts here on Ars.

To get it straight, LS is proposing transmitters onthe lower 10MHz. This is 23MHz away from the lower edge of GPS...effectively a 23MHz guard band. They have now offered to lower to the transmit power significantly. In addition, the original NTIA tests showed that not all GPS devices failed when exposed to a -26 signal or lower.

Since a majority of devices passed the test at -26 or lower, that means it is possible to produce a GPS receiver that will perform adjacent (really 23MHz away) from the LS spectrum.

LightSquared may not make it though to see the spectrum put to work. But I would bet someone will pick up this lower 10 MHz next and deploy a terrestrial system on it. The spectrum is too valuable to leave fallow. And it will be built with little fan fare barely noticed by the internets.

guard band is meaningless when there's that much power difference between the two.

imagine my friend (GPS sattelites) is standing a mile away from me (GPS receiver) holding a lit cigarette lighter, and i can just BARELY make out the flame because it's so dim and so small and far away. then imagine you set up a million watt search light 10 feet to the left of the lighter and turn it on, pointed at me. now there's no chance in hell i'll ever see the flame on the lighter because i'm blinded by the search light.

to extend your assinine argument into this analogy, you would then claim that because the search light is a slightly different color than the lighter's flame, it shouldn't be a big deal. And that myself and everyone else who was also looking at the lighter's tiny flame should now spend a bunch of money on new eyes or glasses because of the problem YOU created. Thanks, but i'd much rather blow up your search light instead. so then you dial your million watt light back to 900,000 watts and move it another 10 feet to the left and say "there, that should allow you to see the lighter just fine." but any moron can tell that it's still impossible.

no, this isn't a perfect analogy, since not many people are interested in looking at a lighter from a mile away, but the power level difference is quite obvious when described this way.

Headon, you actually have a somewhat appropriate nickname. makes me think of this comic:

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

It has nothing to do with an opposing view. It is because you ignore counter arguments, ignore requests for more details, and just repeat the same lines over and over again. What's that look like to you?

Ok Mr 19 posts...call the spanish inquisition.

I have not ignored posts. So called experts continue to make the same argument; "there is no way to filter the LS signal"I continue to make the same rebuttal; There are GPS devices that were tested by NTIA that passed with flying colors when tested at a normal RF exposure level of -26.

This proves that there are not any magic filters required. Unless of course Trimble already has David Copperfield on staff making GPS devices.

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

It has nothing to do with an opposing view. It is because you ignore counter arguments, ignore requests for more details, and just repeat the same lines over and over again. What's that look like to you?

Ok Mr 19 posts...call the spanish inquisition.

hes been a member since April 2011, where youve been a member since feb 2012. just saying.

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

It has nothing to do with an opposing view. It is because you ignore counter arguments, ignore requests for more details, and just repeat the same lines over and over again. What's that look like to you?

Ok Mr 19 posts...call the spanish inquisition.

hes been a member since April 2011, where youve been a member since feb 2012. just saying.

My response was sarcasm...note the pithy Monty Python reference. You continue to perpetuate the myth that # of posts and length of time on Ars is meaningful.

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

It has nothing to do with an opposing view. It is because you ignore counter arguments, ignore requests for more details, and just repeat the same lines over and over again. What's that look like to you?

Ok Mr 19 posts...call the spanish inquisition.

hes been a member since April 2011, where youve been a member since feb 2012. just saying.

My response was sarcasm...note the pithy Monty Python reference. You continue to perpetuate the myth that # of posts and length of time on Ars is meaningful.

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

It has nothing to do with an opposing view. It is because you ignore counter arguments, ignore requests for more details, and just repeat the same lines over and over again. What's that look like to you?

Ok Mr 19 posts...call the spanish inquisition.

hes been a member since April 2011, where youve been a member since feb 2012. just saying.

My response was sarcasm...note the pithy Monty Python reference. You continue to perpetuate the myth that # of posts and length of time on Ars is meaningful.

Well, he did explain his response in more detail for once...

though i think it's funny that he points out "number of posts" as being meaningless, yet tried to call someone on that very fact ("Mr 19 posts"). personally i think post count is quite meaningless. personally if i don't have anything to contribute to a thread where it's obvious that the horse is beaten and dead, i don't post - note how long i've been on here yet i haven't even hit 200 posts. but others post no matter what. how many people have artificially inflated counts because they quote another's post and say "+1" and nothing else? at least there are none here whose post count is high because of "First" posts...

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

It has nothing to do with an opposing view. It is because you ignore counter arguments, ignore requests for more details, and just repeat the same lines over and over again. What's that look like to you?

Ok Mr 19 posts...call the spanish inquisition.

hes been a member since April 2011, where youve been a member since feb 2012. just saying.

My response was sarcasm...note the pithy Monty Python reference. You continue to perpetuate the myth that # of posts and length of time on Ars is meaningful.

Im not perpetuating anything just pointing out the fact that if your trying to get people o listen to you its best not to pretend hes no worthy because he only has 19 posts. Maybe sarcasm isnt your forte.

It is amazing how someone is attacked for having an opposing view. But oh well, bring on the sligns and arrows.

It has nothing to do with an opposing view. It is because you ignore counter arguments, ignore requests for more details, and just repeat the same lines over and over again. What's that look like to you?

Ok Mr 19 posts...call the spanish inquisition.

I have not ignored posts. So called experts continue to make the same argument; "there is no way to filter the LS signal"I continue to make the same rebuttal; There are GPS devices that were tested by NTIA that passed with flying colors when tested at a normal RF exposure level of -26.

This proves that there are not any magic filters required. Unless of course Trimble already has David Copperfield on staff making GPS devices.

And you keep making the same mistake that this has no effect on high precision receivers like used for airplane navigation, which were not tested, because if standard units failed, those high precision units surely would. As to the units that passed, while passing they still suffered reduced accuracy. You can't filter a signal that powerful without significantly reducing the accuracy of signal, and thus making the high precision units worthless. And the more towers you deploy, the worse it gets. The slight drop in power means they'll deploy more towers, and you'll simply have the same or more interference. And now they want to fuck over weather balloon bands too.

It doesn't just fuck up GPS, but it's close enough that it'll fuck up Galileo and Glonass too. That means you wouldn't even have an alternative to fall back on.

So called experts continue to make the same argument; "there is no way to filter the LS signal"I continue to make the same rebuttal; There are GPS devices that were tested by NTIA that passed with flying colors when tested at a normal RF exposure level of -26.

This proves that there are not any magic filters required. Unless of course Trimble already has David Copperfield on staff making GPS devices.

You've neatly glossed over the fact that the NTIA only conducted tests on cellular GPS receivers. Cellular GPS receivers are the least precise kind, so obviously they'd be least affected.

The testing done on personal / general navigation GPS receivers (conducted by NPEF), and aviation GPS receivers (by the FAA) paint a far less pretty picture. As the precision of the GPS receiver increases, so does the impact of Lightsquared's ATC signal.

Isn't there some sort of government process which should prevent the FCC from licensing spectrum which would be fairly useless in this regard? Or is it that LS went into this venture knowing that their use of the spectrum would cause issues and were just hoping that either the laws of physics or man would bend just enough to allow it to exist?

It's the latter.

The FCC aims to be a technology-neutral regulator. Instead of trying to judge whether your planned use of spectrum is "acceptable" given the FCC's understanding of physics, it gives you the chance to prove that it's OK. It does this by giving licenses out with both unconditional uses (the ones that the FCC thinks will be fine, like the satellite to ground component of the LS license), and conditional uses (like the ground-based component of the LS license).

It's the conditions that are upsetting LS; their business model is based around the ground-based component, but the conditions on the license appear to be beyond LS's ability to comply with. LS is dealing with this by trying to argue that the spectrum users protected by the conditions are at fault.

The idea behind this system is simple; the FCC does not want to be in the position where it picks winners and losers; instead, it sets conditions to protect other spectrum users from you, and relies on you working out how to comply with those conditions. The FCC doesn't care about whether your intended use is physically or technologically possible; it just cares that you don't interfere with other licensed spectrum users. It's up to you to make that happen, and if you do that using physics and technology that the FCC doesn't understand, that's not a problem.

The advantage of this system is that if LS really had come up with a novel transmitter or receiver (unlikely, but let's run with this idea for a bit) that would allow them to comply with the license conditions, they can just deploy it; they don't have to wait for the FCC to understand how their novel system works. The disadvantage, as LS is demonstrating now, is that it permits the FCC to issue licenses that can't be complied with economically, which the licenseholder can then wave around as they indicate which other spectrum users the FCC is worried about you disrupting. With a bit of sleight of hand (as demonstrated by LS), you can turn the license condition around - it goes from "OK, you can try this as long as you don't disrupt GPS" to "We could have made this work if GPS didn't get in the way".

What is it about this topic that brings out the level of emotion and anger usually reserved for climate change or internet surveillance?

I think it's the idea that an irreplaceable public resource could be effectively swindled by a private company, with no hope of recovering it once the deed is done.

If this was about something that could be replenished or has a time limit, then I don't think as many pitchforks would come out.

Bingo. It's about the arrogance of Lightsquared to suggest that every person who uses a GPS device needs to go buy a new one, just to accommodate Lightsquared's business model.

I don't see how is it Lightsquared's arrogance that GPS manufactures decided to cut corners and not build their devices robust enough to not be interfered with by neighboring signal bands that they were never licensed to use for GPS. Wouldn't it more be Light Squared that is being punished by Garmin etal's failure to properly design their electronics so I would think it would be the GPS device manufacturers that are being arrogant.

I don't see how is it Lightsquared's arrogance that GPS manufactures decided to cut corners and not build their devices robust enough to not be interfered with by neighboring signal bands that they were never licensed to use for GPS. Wouldn't it more be Light Squared that is being punished by Garmin etal's failure to properly design their electronics so I would think it would be the GPS device manufacturers that are being arrogant.

I don't see how is it Lightsquared's arrogance that GPS manufactures decided to cut corners and not build their devices robust enough to not be interfered with by neighboring signal bands that they were never licensed to use for GPS. Wouldn't it more be Light Squared that is being punished by Garmin etal's failure to properly design their electronics so I would think it would be the GPS device manufacturers that are being arrogant.

What is it about this topic that brings out the level of emotion and anger usually reserved for climate change or internet surveillance?

I think it's the idea that an irreplaceable public resource could be effectively swindled by a private company, with no hope of recovering it once the deed is done.

If this was about something that could be replenished or has a time limit, then I don't think as many pitchforks would come out.

Bingo. It's about the arrogance of Lightsquared to suggest that every person who uses a GPS device needs to go buy a new one, just to accommodate Lightsquared's business model.

I don't see how is it Lightsquared's arrogance that GPS manufactures decided to cut corners and not build their devices robust enough to not be interfered with by neighboring signal bands that they were never licensed to use for GPS. Wouldn't it more be Light Squared that is being punished by Garmin etal's failure to properly design their electronics so I would think it would be the GPS device manufacturers that are being arrogant.

It's LS's arrogance because the GPS devices are robust enough to handle a neighbouring user, just not one at the power levels that LS wants to use (which are, in turn, only permissible if LS can avoid disrupting GPS).

Someone else in this thread came up with a good analogy; imagine two cigarette lighters a mile away, and about an inch apart. It's difficult, but not impossible, to find a manageably sized pair of binoculars that will let you tell how high the flame is from one cigarette lighter, and ignore the other; note that to make the analogy work, I must first spin you around blindfolded so that you have to seek out the flame before you can measure its height.

Now swap one of the cigarette lighters for a 1,000,000 candela searchlight (the sort of thing that's only really used by search and rescue helicopters), and try and continue to identify the height of the cigarette lighter's flame. You'll find you need much more equipment to give you a chance of finding the cigarette lighter flame in a reasonable time, let alone measure the height.

That's roughly analogous to what's happened here - when GPS devices were designed, they were told that the neighbour wouldn't be allowed more than a candle. LS want to put up a huge searchlight, and are saying that if your GPS isn't able to cope with the sudden increase in power, that's your problem. Trouble for LS is that that's not what their license says - it says that LS must ensure its towers don't interfere with GPS.